FIIT Management: Slovensko.Digital Has No Power to Meddle in STU Affairs

Bratislava, June 29 (TASR) - The Slovensko.Digital platform has no power to interfere in the self-government of the university, to assess steps taken by the university management or to call on its members to resign, TASR was told on Monday by Monika Karoliova, a deputy of Ivan Kotuliak, dean of Bratislava-based Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies (FIIT) at the Slovak University of Technology (STU). The FIIT management reacted in this way to an open letter published by the platform on Friday (June 26). In the letter Slovensko.Digital called on Education Minister Branislav Groehling (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) and the STU leadership to address the situation at the faculty. "At the same time we recommend to all our members and the public to refrain from cooperating with the faculty until thorough changes are made to prevent the disintegration of one of Slovakia's best faculties," reads the open letter signed by the Slovensko.Digital managing board. According to the FIIT management, not even the education minister has dared to interfere in the university's affairs. "However, an organisation of private individuals is calling openly on the minister to violate the law and interfere in the university's self-government," claimed the faculty management. The management in its reaction also stated that the FIIT dean was legitimately and properly elected in accordance with the law. "We would like to point to the academic freedom granted to the FIIT dean by a law that includes personnel issues, which come exclusively under the dean's remit. Neither the managing board, nor the STU rector have the right to interfere with this law or restrict it in any way," reads the reaction. The disputes at FIIT escalated when dean Maria Bielikova was fired from the faculty in early January by her successor Ivan Kotuliak. Shortly afterwards he hired 18 researches, a post that doesn't require an official selection process. This move increased the number of staff at the faculty by 40 percent. The media have reported that some of the new researchers were active in private companies that were involved in joint projects with the faculty. Dissatisfied lecturers responded to the developments by holding minor strikes lasting one or two hours every afternoon for three weeks in the winter. Then 24 of the original 36 lecturers announced that they would go on full strike as of March 9. However, the tension was interrupted by the novel coronavirus outbreak in Slovakia, as the first case was diagnosed on March 6 and it was followed by the swift imposition of a lockdown by the government. ko/df